{"id":308880,"date":"2024-03-19T16:44:23","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T21:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=308880"},"modified":"2024-03-18T22:19:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T03:19:15","slug":"media-throw-away-people-suicide-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/media-throw-away-people-suicide-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone should remind the media there are no ‘throw-away people,’ and suicide is bad"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(National Review)<\/a> Politico<\/em> has published a long story about a big-time political consultant named Hal Malchow who is flying to Switzerland to become dead in one of that country\u2019s notorious suicide clinics. It is an obituary of sorts \u2014 before the man\u2019s demise \u2014 describing his passion for Democratic politics, his new book, and his visionary strategies for helping that party.<\/p>\n

It also promotes his suicide in positive terms because Malchow, now 72, has early Alzheimer\u2019s. From\u00a0\u201cHal Malchow Is Going to Die on Thursday\u201d:<\/a><\/p>\n

In a sense, Hal Malchow has been planning for this day ever since 1987, when a genetic marker test revealed he was likely to develop Alzheimer\u2019s. At the time, he was barely 35 years old, a hustling political operative who had recently come off managing Al Gore\u2019s first Senate campaign while overcome with worry about his mother\u2019s early descent into dementia. (Around her 50th birthday, she was discovered wandering lost in a parking lot in the Mississippi town where she had lived her whole life.) After his mother\u2019s untimely death, in 1990, Malchow was intent on never letting himself endure the same thing. If he showed symptoms for Alzheimer\u2019s, Malchow resolved at the time, he would take his life before he became too diminished \u2014 and became a burden to those around him.<\/em><\/p>\n

I understand that fear. But how have we gotten to the place that elderly people and those with serious conditions and disabilities are considered \u201cburdens\u201d instead of precious brothers and sisters deserving of our care? This theme needs to be resisted if we are going to remain a compassionate and caring culture.<\/p>\n

Throughout the story, Malchow\u2019s planned suicide is depicted as empowering:<\/p>\n

Malchow returned to the vow he had made half a life earlier about what he would do when Alzheimer\u2019s arrived: \u201cI knew that if it happened, I was not going to let all this play out to the end.\u201d He had seen how responsibility for his mother had fallen on those around her, and he believed it would be unfair to his wife, Anne Marsh, who already suffered from multiple sclerosis. Several American states, including New Mexico, permit euthanasia under so-called death-with-dignity laws, but all require a candidate to have a fatal condition with only months left to live. Malchow did not qualify and had no interest in living until he did. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point? You know, why sit around the house and watch a little piece of your brain disappear every day?\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the ordeal for the caretaker is terrible.<\/em><\/p>\n

My mother died of Alzheimer\u2019s receiving hospice services in my wife\u2019s and my home \u2014 my uncle passed in a wonderful memory facility where he received splendid and compassionate care \u2014 so I know quite intimately what that disease is. But my mother and uncle\u2019s lives\u00a0were never \u201cpointless<\/em>,\u201d nor is anyone\u2019s! Whatever Malchow might fear, this is an insidious message for\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0to communicate to readers. It promotes the dehumanizing idea \u2014 most prominently criticized\u00a0by the bioethicist Charles Camosy<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 that people with dementia are \u201cthrow-away people.\u201d That\u2019s a message of despair and a justification for abandonment.<\/p>\n

Malchow contacts a suicide clinic, and is applauded by Senator Mark Warner:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe thought it through in his own way to get the analysis and make the decision,\u201d says Sen. Mark Warner, who has been a close friend of Malchow\u2019s since the mid-1980s as well as a client during his runs for statewide office in Virginia. \u201cHal always had a ferocious, independent streak \u2014 a resilient stubbornness once he makes up his mind.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Suicide ideation depicted as resilience. He is also applauded by another friend:<\/p>\n

“The way he is approaching Alzheimer\u2019s and his death \u2014 and in a sense that way he\u2019s promoting his book \u2014 is completely consistent with his principled life,\u201d says Rob McDuff, a Mississippi civil-rights attorney who first encountered Malchow as a teenager attending a youth social-service organization.<\/em><\/p>\n

“He decided he wants to die on his own terms and not have Alzheimer\u2019s take over his last years. It doesn\u2019t surprise me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That phrase, \u201cwants to die on his own terms\u201d is true of every suicide. We just don\u2019t applaud them all \u2014 yet.<\/p>\n

Politico\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0story does a pronounced disservice to society because it promotes a destructively discriminatory meme that if one is seriously ill and\/or dependent, they should\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0consider suicide. Not only that, but promoting Malchow\u2019s plan to kill himself as a courageous decision violates the media guidelines on reporting about suicide\u00a0published by the World Health Organization<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There is overwhelming and ever-increasing evidence that the media can play a significant role in either enhancing suicide prevention efforts or weakening them. The media may provide useful educational information about suicide or may spread misinformation and perpetuate myths about it. Crucially, depending on their content and overarching narrative, media reports about suicide can increase the risk of further deaths by suicide or can help to provide information that may prevent other suicides from occurring.<\/em><\/p>\n

Specifically,\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0violated these guidelines:<\/p>\n